A New Album from Richard Aufrichtig!

with the group Big Numbers

I’m excited to share with all of you the first new record of original material that I’ve been a part of releasing since 2020. Given that 2019’s Troubadour No. 1 and Fan Fiction For Planet Earth records, along with 2020’s Perfume Cigarettes, were all sourced from recording sessions in 2017, and songwriting work from before then, this is really the first new thing I’ve been able to share with people in a while. I’d like to tell you a little bit about how it came into being, and I hope you’ll find some time to hang out with it today or in the coming weeks. 

In 2022, I started recording the Fresh Wind sessions, that currently make up the primary content for this Substack, in earnest. During that year, I was just starting to meet people in the Taos community - and, every once in a while I’d meet an interesting person, or see a particularly striking musical performance, and I’d ask that person to come record a session. Before I became involved in running shows at the now-shuttered Ennui Gallery, I made a point of seeing any show that they hosted - as the space was my favorite spot in town to hear music. Unlike many of the spaces here in Taos, it was more of a listening room than a bar. In August of 2022, I went to a show that featured a set of music from a guitarist/songwriter named Scott Randolph - better known around town for his work as a DJ on KNCE (and formerly KTAOS) under the name Barnmaster. I was really struck by his playing and songwriting, and was surprised after the show when he let me know that he’d recently been listening to my music and was hoping that we’d meet. Needless to say, I asked him to record a Fresh Wind session (No. 9 - coming to your inboxes on August 29th). 

While recording his session in September of that year, he invited me to come to what he called a “weekly sparring session” he had with a drummer named Peter Halter - also a DJ on KNCE. Both residents of Taos for over three decades, and in their mid-60s, these sparring sessions had been happening regularly for a few years. Over the course of that winter, I went to a handful of the jams, and an easy interplay between the three of us quickly developed. Peter is a drummer firmly in the school of free jazz, and I would describe Scott’s guitar playing as psychedelic in nature - so, during the jams, I kept finding myself playing simple rhythmic parts that could ground their explorations. During one fortuitous “sparring session” in early 2023, I made the connection that what I was playing on the guitar might translate better on a bass guitar instead. From the moment we kicked into that first jam in the guitar/bass/drum formation, it was clear to all three of us that something special was happening. By the end of that practice, we were already talking about the possibility of the trio becoming….dare we say it…a band?

As the jams continued, I discovered that Scott had a double life as a visual artist - primarily in the form of metal sculpture. In February of 2023, I made a trade with Scott to record a larger batch of his songs in exchange for a sculpture for the cover of my One More Cup EP.  Shortly after that I made a trip to NYC to meet my nephew Cass, and found myself listening to Scott’s songs more or less on repeat on my urban perambulations. It was around that time that Ennui Gallery’s Sarah Hart asked if I wanted to collaborate on running a concert series at her space. And, in the mad dash to put together the first show on April 13th, 2023 (my 34th birthday), I proposed to Scott and Peter that we learn a few of the songs from the demo session and close out the first of what would become The Sunset Series. A week or two before the show the name “The Big Numbers” came to me, and when I brought it to band practice, they both said: “Perfect. Just scratch ‘The’ from it.” Thus, Big Numbers was born. 

Things snowballed a bit from there in the spring and summer of 2023. It was an ebullient season of music in Taos - the first since the Covid lockdown that concerts were happening on a regular basis. Over those months we played probably a dozen shows, learning more of Scott’s songs and some of mine as well along the way. At some point during that first run, we decided that we would all be considered equal authors of the songs that we brought to the band - as our arrangement process was intensive, often involving a process of completely re-imagining the song to the point where it hardly resembled whatever version Scott or I originally brought into the fold. I personally found that agreement really freeing. It allowed me to fully engage with exploring all of the songs that we were working on - and, as the year wore on, I fully embraced my role in the group as bass player/harmonizer.  I was living my Paul McCartney dream, and enjoying every second of it.

In September of 2023, we booked three days of recording at Omar Rane’s Tone Palace Studio in Arroyo Seco - with the goal of recording an album that captured the interplay of tight vocal harmonies and expressive instrumental interludes that had become the hallmark of our live shows. While we only ended up being satisfied with one of the thirty recordings we made in that three day span, those early sessions set into motion the exhaustive work, stretching through May of 2024, that led to the creation of the album I’m sharing with you today. Peter has a career as a film projectionist at high-profile film festivals - so, during the gaps that he was in Taos throughout the end of 2023, we would bunker in Scott’s recently built Scud Dub studio, at this house in El Prado, and put our nose to the grindstone trying to capture our sound. By December, we had four basic tracks that we were happy with - and an extended instrumental piece, as well. With a runtime of 45 minutes, we went into 2024 with the completed basic tracks for what would become our debut record. 

January through March of 2024 was spent tracking vocals and minor overdubs at my Heartbreak Hotel home studio. Then, from March through May, Benjamin Lanz (of The National, Beirut, and Sufjan Stevens) mixed the record at his Ploverland studio in Paris, FR - adding just the right amount of tasteful horns into the mix to fill out the craggy edges of our compositions. It was only a week before the album was finished being mixed that Scott came to the realization that he didn’t want to move forward with the agreement of sharing songwriting credit, or pursuing the work of being in a band, beyond the scope of the album we were completing. So, on the precipice of beginning to record a second Big Numbers record, we instead began the process of uncoupling as a band. It’s been a challenging few months seeing this record through and navigating the various factors of transitioning away from the band mindset. But, I couldn’t be happier with the self-titled record that Big Numbers is releasing into the world today. 

I find the album we made to be something of an anomaly in the music industry of 2024. Completely void of click-tracks, autotune, or melodyne - the core of each of the songs on the album is a live take of the drums, bass, and guitar mingling together in real time. While the album is being released into the world as the group parts ways to pursue our respective goals, I think even the most casual listener will find something rewarding in the fresh, love-filled, home-grown songs we put together. While I’m sad that the second record we had planned to record is no longer in the cards, I’m glad that we were able to capture at least some of the fire. 

For folks who are local to Taos, we’ll be playing our final show together as an Album Release Party on this coming Monday, August 12th. Tickets are available online here!

It’s been a long journey to get back into the space of writing and sharing my own music since 2017. As of today, I’m happy to be moving the stone at last, and am even more happy to share that I’m about to start recording a new “solo” record of original material. So, more is in the works! This is the beginning of a new chapter in my musical life. 

You can find the album on all streaming services - and if you’d like to support me and the other members of the band more directly, you can purchase a digital or high-bias cassette version of the album at our Bandcamp page. Here are some helpful links:

BANDCAMP

SPOTIFY

APPLE MUSIC

TIDAL

I’m happy to share, with my paying subscribers, the original demo of one of the compositions that I brought to the group that made it onto the record. I think you’ll see what I meant when I said that the group process really turned it into a brand-new, totally-different kind of song.

“Ocean (29 July 2022 Demo)”